_Congress had No Power of Taxation._--Not only were the defects in the organization and procedure of Congress of a serious character, but the powers conferred upon it by the Articles of Confederation were so meager that its authority was little more than a shadow and carried little weight. One of the essential powers of government is that of taxation, yet the Congress had no authority to impose a dollar of taxes on any individual in the land. Money was needed to pay the soldiers who were fighting the battles of the country, to pay the salaries and expenses of diplomatic representatives who had been sent to Europe to negotiate treaties and solicit the aid of foreign friends, to pay interest on loans incurred in France and Holland, to defray the cost of building war ships and equipping the army, and to meet the various other expenses which every government must needs incur, yet the government of the Confederation was powerless to raise the necessary funds by taxation. In the absence of all power to levy and collect taxes, Congress adopted the policy of apportioning the national expenses among the states. But no state could be compelled to contribute a dollar toward its quota; some of them in fact contributed little, and most of those which did respond to the appeal of Congress did so grudgingly and tardily. Of the $15,000,000 apportioned among the states between 1781 and 1786 less than $2,000,000 was actually paid in. Often there was not a dollar in the treasury of the Confederation to pay the obligations of the government. Two attempts were made to amend the Articles of Confederation so as to give Congress power to levy a five per cent tariff duty on imported goods, but since it required the assent of each of the thirteen states to adopt an amendment, the scheme fell through, in both cases on account of the opposition of a single state. _Congress had No Power to Regulate Commerce_, either with foreign countries or among the states themselves. This was a serious defect. Each state had its own tariff system and its own customhouses, and collected its own duties on goods brought into its ports from abroad. As each state was anxious to exploit this source of revenue for itself, it naturally framed its tariff regulations and tonnage laws in such a way as to attract foreign commerce to its own ports. And so it was with regard to commerce among the states themselves. Each framed its trade regulations with its neighbors according to its own selfish interests and without regard to the general good. The result was continual jealousies, dissensions, and sometimes reprisals and retaliations. New York levied an import duty on certain articles brought in from its less fortunate neighbors, Connecticut and New Jersey, and each in turn retaliated as best it could. For purposes of foreign and interstate commerce, each state was a nation itself, and the Confederation was a nonentity.